6 Ridiculous First Drafts of Famous Movie Monsters

#3. District 9 -- The Prawns Were Space Hobos

What made District 9 interesting is that it wasn't just a standard sci-fi movie about humans fighting aliens with large weapons and explosions: The first part of the film went to great lengths to establish a realistic setting with real sociological and political implications.

And then it turned into a standard sci-fi movie with large weapons and explosions.

That's why it was always important to depict the prawn aliens in a realistic and respectful way -- they had to look alien enough to be menacing, but also dignified enough that you'd feel sorry for all the atrocities committed against them. This might have been a little hard to accomplish if the aliens had been large puppets dressed in silly costumes ... as originally intended:

Wired.comWe choose to believe that the old man is guiding him and not seducing him.

That's a real piece of concept art from the book The Art of District 9, which reveals that the people who designed the film went through a whole period where the prawns (originally meant to be puppets instead of CGI) were supposed to look like intergalactic hobos. The idea was that the prawns had really sensitive skin and eyes and would cover themselves with anything they found ... including plastic bags and stop signs that they used as hats.

The main designer also states in the book that he thought it would be funny if the aliens tried to wear sunglasses but kept breaking them, so naturally they ended up taping them to their faces. This idea was apparently deemed too hilarious for a film about the horrors of apartheid.

And because there's a thin line between a hobo and a hipster, of course some of them would look like this:

Wired.comHe's dressed as a sheriff, but also has a tiny sheriff on his hat. It's like Inception.

The only upside is that this would have cleared up the mystery of why these guys ended up stranded on Earth -- they're like a group of hobos who curled up to sleep under a bridge one day and stayed there for 20 years.

But hey, at least this didn't go past the concept stage, unlike ...

#2. Spider-Man -- The Green Goblin Was Literally a Green Goblin

The Green Goblin is one of Spider-Man's deadliest enemies (actual goblins being spiders' natural predators), which is why back in 2002 fans were outraged that the movie version looked less like the comic book character and more like the ugliest Power Ranger ever.

Luckily, Dafoe mainly acts with his chin.

What those fans aren't taking into account is that a literal translation of the comic book costume would look silly as shit in live action -- as this real test footage of that very thing proves:

Good lord, it looks like the witch from The Wizard of Oz did it with one of those winged monkeys. And yep, apparently they seriously considered using it in the movie.

The footage reveals that director Sam Raimi originally commissioned special effects company Amalgamated Dynamics to produce a literal version of the Green Goblin, one that seems to suggest that Willem Dafoe's billionaire industrialist character in the movie was either an actual goblin or one hell of a makeup artist.

"If only I had my kit ..."

The most disturbing part of the video, however, is the moment when an off-camera Raimi basically commands the actor behind the mask to make love to the camera, demonstrating a wide range of expressions that go from "angry rapist" to "pleasant child molester."

Presumably, the studio heads were so deeply scarred by this test footage that they unanimously decided the Goblin's mask should never be able to change expressions, ever. So we ended up with a completely stoic robot mask, but it could have been much, much worse.

We don't know what the actual reason for changing the mask was, considering that Sam Raimi sounds strangely pleased with it in the video. Incidentally, Raimi is currently directing a prequel for The Wizard of Oz, so maybe there's still a chance that he'll unleash this thing on the world.

Sex has always been a recurring theme in the Alien franchise. We've already pointed out how the whole thing is basically a metaphor for rape. Also, for anyone who grew up watching the films or at least being aware of them, there's that revelatory moment during puberty when you realize that the chest-burster looks remarkably like a dong. Some of us still giggle when we see it.

Even if it happened in real life, we'd be like "Haha, there's a penis in your chest."

So, in a franchise where mouth rape and dong monsters are part of the established mythology, how do you take things too far? Leave it to a Frenchman to figure out the answer.

The fourth film, Alien Resurrection, featured an alien/human hybrid that came about from combining the DNA of the terrifying Alien Queen with the even more terrifying Ellen Ripley. The result is perhaps the most disturbing creature in the entire Alien franchise -- but originally, it was disturbing on a completely different level:

So how long did this hideous idea make it before someone shot it down? Concept art? Test footage? A couple of scenes? Nope, they actually shot the entire movie with the genitals intact, somehow. So if you think the actors look extra awkward during the last part of the film, you try working with a boner staring at you at all times.

Apparently Jeunet got tired of having to look at this thing while editing the movie, because he ended up digitally removing the genitals in post-production -- in the special edition DVD, he admitted that "Even for a Frenchman, it's too much."

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